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By Kareem Islamiyat
With extensive experience in human capital management, executive recruitment, and organisational development, Patience Ayanyemi has built a career at the intersection of talent, leadership, and business growth.
A human resources executive, executive search consultant, and business leader, her expertise spans executive search, recruitment, payroll management, contract staffing, coaching, and outplacement services. She leads one of the region’s foremost executive search and human capital consulting firms, serving organisations across the energy, maritime, logistics, fintech, construction, and other key sectors. In this interview, she discusses building performance culture in MSMEs, the role of leadership, accountability, and effective performance management.
Before we get into the details, how would you define performance culture in a sentence, for someone hearing the term for the first time?
It’s the way or set of behaviours and norms within a company that helps an organization achieve its objectives.
Culture is often described as “the way we do things here.” What decides that way in an MSME with ten people and no HR manual?
The approach of the business owner to issues or individuals at the helm of affairs influences the way things are done in such an organization.
Many MSME owners equate hard work with performance. Where does that assumption break down?
Assumption breakdown when the hard work is not aligned with the goals of the organization or the quality or speed of work. When a strong performance mgt system is not in place, where SMART KPIs are defined upfront, with period appraisals; hard work maybe be perceived as performance
If an MSME cannot afford a performance management system, what replaces it?
Hold strategic alignment meetings to establish clear organisational and individual goals, set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) KPIs, and develop a performance dashboard to track progress and performance. Conduct monthly performance management meetings to review progress against set targets, address gaps and provide timely support, while carrying out paper-based appraisals twice a year to assess performance and ensure effective delivery of agreed goals.
What happens to a business when the founder is the only source of standards?
When the founder is the only source of standard, the organization takes on the personality of the founder . Organisation fades off when founder is weak or passes on
Can accountability exist without documentation, or does informality always cap growth?
When Culture isn’t clearly defined , there will be borderline issues. Staff wouldn’t know
exactly how to play leaving a lot to individual judgement. Customers suffer as various interpretations may arise . Tough for accountability to exist without documentation, this informality caps growth overtime
When you walk into an MSME for the first time, what tells you a performance culture is missing?
When there’s no defined way of how, when or the way customers are treated, no sense of urgency and no drive to meet the customers need at the earliest to ensure a repeat purchase. Work won’t get done at the required standard and speed
Some businesses confuse loyalty with performance. How do you help owners separate the two?
A performance driven culture will help owners realize that not all loyal employees are adding value to the business at the expected level
What does it cost an MSME to keep an underperforming staff member out of sympathy?
Demanding higher performance standards from other employees becomes tough If an underperforming staff is on payroll, why must another employee deliver at all cost?
How does a founder’s personal discipline translate, or fail to translate, into organisational discipline?
Makes the organization ultimately a non performing organization that won’t realize it’s strategic objectives
If you had one year to fix a broken performance culture in an MSME, where would you start and why?
I will start from the senior management team or the founder because they have the responsibilities of driving, implementing a performance culture and ensuring the business objectives are achieved.
